Tony Takitani

This is a slow, deliberate film on the subject of loss (and loneliness) The first few minutes don't exactly imbue you with confidence, and strike very much as a "pseuds" corner speciality.

The filmmaker and the droll narrator however save you and produce a gentle portrait of a man who lives through loneliness.

There are woman involved too, but the cast is sparse.

I have read other users mention melancholy in their reviews. I disagree with this. This is a film simply shot and with a gentle simple piano score attached to it. There are no vibrant colours but it is just as visually enchanting as the "The thin red line" even for it greyness.

It is the strength of the characters that however keep you engaged.

Watch this.

"Tony Takitani" is the first full length adaptation of a Haruki Murakami tale (the IMDb message board provides a link to an English translation of the story) and it beautifully translates his ethereal prose themes to visuals.

There's his characteristic isolated man, mysterious women who come and go and recur, American jazz and obsessions that all link to Japan's post-war experiences and the prisons we make for ourselves.

The film begins like a narrated slide show as we see biographical images of "Tony" as a child and his father. Gradually, the stills move for longer periods to learn more about each man and focus on "Tony" as a young man who has gravitated to free-lance mechanistic illustration as a perfect professional emotionless counterpart to his internal condition. The characters occasionally take up the narration in almost the only dialog we hear.

The second half of the film explores the nature of loneliness and love. The younger woman he falls in love with literally comes with baggage, as each have a fear of emptiness that they assuage through their own means.

While how she wore her clothes attracted him in the first place, the world is divided between those who are pack rat collectors and those who are not - a division "Tony" thinks he can cross and suppress, only to have those feelings reappear with resonances, with a bit of a spooky reference to Hitchcock's "Vertigo" trying to morph into "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" with almost an O. Henry twist. While most viewers will think the woman's clothes shopping is a fetish (and the montage of her luxuriating in shoe after shoe is humorous), I thought this film was the best since "Ghost World" to make an effort to capture the sensual, addictive feelings of a collector of objects and not as outsiders for an Errol Morris documentary.

As it visually relates her fear of emptiness to the father's and the son's claustrophobic lives, the film lyrically shows how not only is love not enough and how asking one you love to give up something they love destroys love, but the objects themselves will now carry different and unexpected emotions for whomever comes into contact with them.

While Ryuichi Sakamoto's gentle score reinforces this meditation on loneliness, I thought we should have heard more of the father's jazz.

Director Jun Ichikawa demonstrates a uniquely idiosyncratic film-making style somewhat reminiscent of Yasujiro Ozu's work in his constant use of lengthy medium shots shot at waist level, as well as a certain narrative sensibility that focuses on elliptical episodes to unfold a story in a subtly uneventful manner. Unlike Ozu, however, Ichiwara verges somewhat toward contrivance in unspooling his tale, one that feels more like a paean to Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo". However, the Freudian subtext and Baroque melodrama of that classic have been submerged in favor of glacial pacing and implied emotionalism.

The title character with the staccato name is the only son of a renowned jazz trombonist. He grows up to become a lonely technical illustrator who obsesses over his work and remains content in his solitude. He finally meets Eiko, a beautiful, demure woman with an even greater obsession - an uncontrollable desire for designer clothes. Upon his insistence, they marry and live happily for a time, so much so that he realizes he can never live without her. True to Murphy's law, tragedy strikes, and the plot turns on what Tony does next to fill the void in his existence. Based on a short story by popular writer Haruki Murakami (who wrote the intriguingly surreal "Kafka on the Shore" released last year in the US), the 2005 movie effectively captures the author's highly stylized world, in particular, Tony's solitude in a series of lingering silences and mundane activities punctuated by acts of quirky behavior.

The beautifully muted cinematography is by Taishi Hirokawa, and it reminds me of Gordon Willis's work on Woody Allen's "Interiors". Similar to the Bergmaneque feeling of that film, Hirokawa achieves a consistent aesthetic that matches an art design that sees characters occupying clean white and gray spaces rendered with a soft graininess. Moreover, the camera moves gradually though pointedly from left to right as transitional devices to move the story's action forward as if following a horizontal timeline or looking though a series of slides. The technique is intriguing at first but eventually feels contrived, just like the literary conceit of having the characters finish the narrator's sentences (Hidetoshi Nishijima provides the penetrating voice narration throughout the story). There is also a meditative, Windham Hill-esquire music score by the estimable Ryuichi Sakamoto, which aptly captures the evocative nature of the story structure.

The acting is unobtrusive to fit the mostly quiet atmosphere. In true Hitchcockian fashion, Ichikawa has his two leads play double roles - Issei Ogata plays Tony and his jazz musician father, and Rie Miyazawa plays Eiko and Hisako, the woman who responds to Tony's ad. Truthfully, neither makes that vivid an impression in either role, and that is part of the problem I have with the film, the lack of indelible characters to inhabit the hermetically sealed world that Ichikawa and Murakami have created. The paper-thin plot yields very little opportunity for emotional payoffs, and there is little that remains resonant after all is said and done. Even at a brief 75-minute running time, it feels like slow going and lingers with a vague sense of hopelessness. By the way, the DVD has no significant extras.

After seeing "Tony Takitani," it's like I just ate something I have never tasted before, and it left some strange taste in my mouth. Even though I can't say I like what I just ate, but it tastes so interesting that I wanna to taste it again if I get the chance. That's how I feel about this poetic Japanese film.

The film is very slow, like watching a flower blooming on a drizzle day, the film never wants to rush into anything. Tony Takitani is a loner, he is always by himself, until he finally met a woman Eiko. Eiko is a perfect housewife, making Tony forgot about what being alone means. But Eiko has one problem: she can't stop shopping for clothes. What is Tony gonna do about it? What's the consequence might be? I will leave that to you to see the film. But to me, watching this film is not about the plot or the characters, which neither impressed me. The visual is the core of this film, that's what makes me reluctant to say this is a boring film. Quite the contrary. Sometimes, the film makes me feel like watching the animal world on PBS, with the never shutting up narrator. Why doesn't the film let the characters to talk, but constantly uses a voice over? I find it very annoying.

To people who never had sushi and sashimi, I always encourage them to try them, it will be nothing like they ever had before. So try to watch this film if you can have a chance. Just like sushi, I can't promise everybody will like it, but the experience is never to forget.

All of us have felt loneliness at one time or another. Probably not to the extent that Tony (Issei Ogata) felt. His father made sure he would be lonely by giving him an unusual name which prevented acceptance from the beginning.

After years of loneliness, he takes a beautiful wife (Rie Miyazawa). He is no longer lonely, but becomes fearful that he will experience loneliness again.

The beautiful piano music that plays throughout and the minimal sets remind us that loneliness is ever present. The film moves slowly, just as loneliness might move.

Tony is fairly happy after marriage, but another problem crops up. His wife is obsessed with clothes. We are talking Imelda Marcos obsessed. She is addicted to buying and it consumes her to the point that she cannot stop without withdrawal.

Her obsession causes her death and Tony is alone again. He struggles through the loneliness in strange fashion. We have moved from the action of his married life, back to the minimalism.

Jun Ichikawa did a magnificent job of using voice-over and music and set to create the perfect mood and a perfect retelling of Haruki Murakami's novel.